ZOOM H6essential Handy Recorder – Portable 32-Bit Float Audio Recorder with 6-Track Recording – Ideal for Podcasts, Music, Film Sound – Black

Love this product. Works in professional audio recording environments.

It’s brilliant. I’m a pro user and was familiar with the old h6. To be honest I expected this to be worse but it’s excellent in all respects. Audio quality is really good.

Incredible. New 32. it float audio engine truly makes this recorder "fire and forget", don't understand the complauns from people who lack gain knobs. You literally do not need them on this recorder, though the mixer screen is still useful. Great battery life too!

Good product. Sound quality excellent. Only used with mains adapter so can't speak for battery life. Very good value for money as it has four inputs plus the two built-in mics. All stereo and balance adjustable if need be. The only down side is the fiddly control of moving around it's functions very touch sensitive and quiet a bit of it. Ease of use questionable. Overall the best for home recording I've seen for acoustic guitar and vocals. Haven't used outdoors yet can't comment on battery life not used a battery. However, I'd suggest only using mains power if you're using phantom power for things like adding condenser mics as this will drain battery pretty quickly I think. Don't regret acquiring.

I came to the H6 Essential from a background in photography rather than film or audio, so I wanted something robust and adaptable that wouldn’t punish me for not being a full-time sound recordist and more or less guarantee good results. After a few weeks of real use, I’m impressed. The big feature is obviously 32-bit float, whih changes how I can work. Levels become far less stressful, especially in run-and-gun or unpredictable situations. You can focus on mic placement and what you’re recording rather than constantly riding gain. In practice, it feels liberating rather than gimmicky. Right now, I’m using it both to build a growing library of foley sounds and to record audio for short, narrative-driven videos where subtle detail matters. Whether it’s quiet mechanical sounds or more conventional dialogue, the H6 Essential handles it calmly and predictably. The mic inputs and preamps are better than I expected at this level. The preamps may not match the more expensive F-series, but the sound remains clean with a low noise floor, and the recordings stand up well in post without feeling brittle or over-processed. It’s night and day compared to recording directly into the camera with my MKE 600 or Hollyland Lark lavs. Having multiple XLR inputs available offers a lot of flexiblity. Being able to run a shotgun, one or two lavs, or planted mics at the same time gives it far more scope than a simple on-camera or two-channel recorder, especially when building sound libraries or working on small narrative pieces. The layout is sensible once you’ve spent a little time with it. Physical controls matter when you’re working by feel rather than staring at menus, and Zoom has got that balance right in my opinion. It seems like a tool designed to be used, not just compared on a spec sheet. It's also nicely sized with a good feel in the hand. Build quality is solid enough for sensible use without inviting deliberate abuse. I wouldn’t treat it roughly, but it’s clearly intended for location work rather than desk-only use. Battery life has been perfectly reasonable so far, and USB-C power makes longer sessions easy to manage. If you’re a filmmaker, documentarian or content creator who needs dependable, high-quality audio without turning sound into a second full-time job, this is a very strong choice. It rewards good technique but doesn’t punish you while you’re learning. Not cheap, but it feels like something I’ll still be using years from now rather than upgrading away from after a season.

I got this to start recording my podcast, plus soundscapes. I would advise getting a pop shield for the built in Mic but aside from that it’s a fantastic pickup on the mic, and ofcourse you can swap them around and attach third party mics to. I have a couple of Samson Q 2 U mics which work great. It’s a fantastic medium sized recorder packed with pro features you really won’t be disappointed. If like me you got this so that you can access the voice guidance functionality, it’s ready to go as soon as you power the device on. Again you won’t be disappointed. Well worth the money in my view.

Amazing bit of kit - great sound quality and virtually idiot proof! Just press record.

Works great with some really good improvements, especially the 32bit update which is a total game changer for anyone working with audio. My HUGE gripe with it however is the really poor decision to completely unnecessarily redesign the mic capsule attachments with no adapter or option at all for using any of the mic capsules from the previous generations. Anyone who's a heavy zoom user has probably got more than one of these mic attachments and the whole point of them being detachable was that you could upgrade the body and still use all of the mic attachments between devices. now they're just E-waste and you're expected to buy a whole new set of the exact same mics! can we please get an adapter module? or a trade-in system for this artificial problem Zoom has created with their own product design?